1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to an electromagnetic contactless interconnect scheme for providing a communication path between electronic components, such as integrated circuits, and/or electrical systems and, in particular, to an electrical interconnect scheme in which the electronic elements are electromagnetically coupled to each other either directly or through an intermediate device, by contactless proximity connections.
2. Description of Related Art
Integrated circuits and other elements of an electronics system typically communicate with one another through a wired interconnection structure. For example, in a data processing or computing system, a parallel wired interface, such as a bus, may link a microprocessor to other integrated circuits, such as memory integrated circuits, within the system. To communicate with one another, all of the integrated circuits and other electronic elements of the system must be physically connected, with a direct current (DC) path, to the wired interconnection structure. In other words, the integrated circuits and other electronics elements must make physical contact with the wired interconnection structure. Thereafter, the integrated circuits and other system elements can send electronic signals to each other over the wired interconnection structure.
Generally, only one integrated circuit or system element sends signals on the wired interconnection structure at any given time, but all integrated circuits and system elements typically monitor each signal traveling on the wired interconnection structure. Usually, an integrated circuit or system element ignores data conveyed on the wired interconnection structure unless the data is addressed to that integrated circuit or system element.
In a typical wired interconnection structure, each wired signal line is usually implemented by a separate trace on a printed circuit board or the like. Drivers and receivers within each integrated circuit or system element transmit and receive signals conveyed on each line of the wired interconnection structure. The drivers and receivers do so by physically contacting the lines and thereby creating an electrical connection with the lines. Such prior methods, however, have several disadvantages: they are costly, they consume power, they can distort and attenuate high frequency signals, and they often require large, capacitive electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection devices. In many high frequency applications, the signal distortion caused by the wired interconnection structure, rather than the speed of the integrated circuits or system elements themselves, often limits the speed or data rate at which the integrated circuits and system elements are able communicate with each other.